Three guys from Chicago who call themselves the “Chicago Nasty Boys” have been tearing through basements, storage units, and country bars in Rockford for years before anyone in the city proper gave a damn. Now Pure Intention — Jojo the Dog Faced Boy on bass and vocals, Tommy Volume on guitar and vocals, Judson Jones on drums, featured on IDIOTEQ in 2023 — are dropping their self-titled debut full-length, and it lands the way their sets do: fast, sweaty, and without apology.
The band formed in 2020 when Jojo and Tommy linked up with zero previous band experience between them. After cycling through a drummer and eventually pulling in Judson Jones, they spent years grinding through singles and EPs before deciding it was time to go long. The album, recorded and produced by Fred Mason of Satin Black and Nightfreak, comes out January 30th, with a release show the next day at Beat Kitchen alongside Bugoff! and Doomzday Slutz. It’ll be available on CD and cassette.
The recording approach was simple and non-negotiable. No overdubs, no samples, bass panned one side, guitar the other — like Black Sabbath. “We have a really intense live show and we wanted to capture that on this album,” Jojo says. They broke their own rule once: a sample from Tim Robinson’s “I Think You Should Leave” landed in the track “Midwestern Judas.” “There was a certain sketch we kept laughing at when we were on tour in June and figured it was only right to include a part of it.” Beyond that, it’s the live show minus the visuals “and the lesser appreciated smell aspect. Thank god for Planet Fitness showers!”
Previous recordings came out solid but never felt right — too separated from what happens when Pure Intention actually play a room. They’ve never been a studio band and they know it. Punk at its core is real and honest, and the stage is where they work best. The unpolished sound of 60s and 70s rock has always pulled them in. Jojo talks about Black Sabbath’s “Never Say Die” — the last one with Ozzy — and the way the drums sit in the mix. “There’s no production, it’s a live kit. I feel like I’m right next to Bill Ward hammering away at the skins.” That was the target. “The quality of the recording is something that never mattered. If you have a good song, that’s all that counts.”
Fred Mason of Satin Black and Nightfreak produced the record, and that choice was specific. “The Satin Black stuff sounds awesome. Fred records all of that. We wanted a similar sound,” Tommy says. He’s also a friend. They didn’t want anything overproduced. “Does it sound like the stuff you hear on the radio? Certainly not. Does it sound perfect to us? Yes it does.”
The band cites Germs, Misfits, Black Flag, Cosmic Psychos, and The Chats — but they stress they never set out to copy anyone. The idea was to build off what those bands started and keep it alive. “It’s a back to basics hardcore punk record, it’s fast and unforgiving just like our lives.”
Chicago runs through everything they do, even when they don’t try. People compare them to Naked Raygun and Pegboy constantly, though the band doesn’t really count either as a direct influence. They think the city itself is what connects them. Anthony Bourdain once called Chicago big, brash, and muscular. “It rings true,” Jojo says. “There are good, honest, tough people that make this city very beautiful. To see bands still fill rooms this many years after Robert Johnson and all the other pioneers brought guitar music to the forefront, it’s a really beautiful thing.”
But Jojo — also known as Joe Asshole — doesn’t sugarcoat the grind.
“I don’t feel we owe this city anything. If we owe anything to anybody it’s the true fans who keep showing up after all these years. Truthfully this city never cared about us until we forced it to listen.” He describes a scene that’s cliquey and tough to break into. Booking anything worthwhile at a decent venue as a new band is damn near impossible. “I ain’t complaining. You have to build a reputation first. So that’s what we did. There’s no golden ticket in a chocolate bar that says ‘hey kid, congratulations, you’re a rockstar now.’ We had to work at it. And when I say work at it I mean really really hard. Most bands give up. Fuck that.” One of their earliest gigs was at a country bar in Rockford — “total Blues Brothers moment.” They’ve since opened for the Dwarves, Winona Fighter, Cancerslug, among others. “People finally started to notice what we knew from the start.”
The one thing the album can’t do is replicate the crowd. They’re honest about that. “In punk, the crowd and the band are one. We need each other and we feed off each other.”
The performance and the record go hand in hand — three guys tearing through songs at full speed, full of anger, sweat, and blood — but the room, the bodies, the feedback loop between stage and floor, that stays in the venue. “We do this for them at the end of the day. We want to succeed for them. We want to inspire. We’re just regular dudes with a whole helluva lotta passion. If we can do it, you can too.”
As for whether this record draws a line in the sand — no. It’s the best Pure Intention has ever sounded, but they’re not interested in locking themselves in. “Pigeonholing ourselves just seems silly. That said, Pure Intention will always be a rock n roll band with punk ideology. That will always be true. But making the same record over and over again seems like a waste of time and money especially because we aren’t as talented as Iron Maiden.”
The self-titled debut is out now on CD and cassette.
